Hopefully back in business after 15 years; a Blaze King story

[craigs]

My parents bought a Blaze King King (I think it was a KTJ302) new a long time ago, probably early 80s. Dad and I fed it by cutting a LOT of wood along with both grandpas who also burned wood. We had a '61 International dump truck and would fill it 3 times in a day. Dad would drop the trees and he and grandpa would cut off the branches while I marked the logs. Then they'd cut the pieces while I moved the branches. After the whole tree or trees were cut, we'd fill up the dump truck and one or two pickups. Then my life saving breaks would be the half hour ride back to the house. Unfortunately the dump truck allowed us to pull a lever and the truck was empty before I could refill the water jug and take a bathroom break! But I spent a lot of time with the family and learned to drive while back in the woods.

I remember the stove being able to burn all night by putting a couple logs in before bed, and easily all day after dad fixed it up in the morning before work. When my parents built a new house in 1996, they rented our old one to some friends. My dad didn't want them accidentally burning the house down so the wood burner was sold. I had planned on buying the house but a new job in Ohio made me think I wouldn't get the house, let alone worry about the woodburner. Things worked out and I got a job back home within 6 months and the renters finished their new house a year later. I moved from mom and dad's new house back into the one I grew up in. And for the past 8 years now I've been hoping to either buy back the original Blaze King or find a similar one.

After several misses on Craigslist and not seeing many on Ebay, I finally found one for sale a couple hours from home. It's a KTJ302 and from the pics appears identical to our old model. The seller accepted a deposit and I'm picking it up this weekend. Can't wait! It appears that it will need cleaned and painted. Does anyone have recommendations for preparing the metal (I have a couple sandblasters if that's the best way to make an even finish) and painting? I want it to have a factory type dull finish that doesn't have the shiney spots and blotches that rattle cans usually give. Anybody know of a way to avoid that?

Funny part is, back in the day my dad and grandpa had (and still have) Jonsered 451ev saws which are great little cutters. Dad always told me as a kid "you'll never find one of these" after they quit making them. Several years ago I happened to find one in great shape on Ebay and got it for a song. Dad said "nice buy, but what are you going to use it for?". Now he knows!

Craig

 

[Todd]

Welcome back to wood heat. There are a few others here burning older Blaze Kings. If you have sand blaster that would be the way to go, then wipe her down with denatured alcohol and paint with high temp paint. Spray painting will give you the best looking finish but I don't know where you could get high temp paint besides the rattle cans, may have to special order paint and rent a good sprayer?

 

[tickbitty]

Love the story! Hope the old/new stove lives up to your expectations! People on here sure adore their new EPA Blaze king stoves, and while I am sure yours won't compete with the efficiency of those, the quality of the old ones must really be something.
Is this one of the old Kings with the ceramic tile of the flames on it? I saw one of those here locally recently.
I can't speak to restoring the metal but lots of folks here have really spiffed up some old rusty stoves so it surely can be done well.

 

[craigs]

Thanks.

Yes, this is the kind with the 3 ceramic decorations of flames on the front. I'm a very sentimental kind of person (still have my first motorcycle from almost 20 years ago, first car, dated same girl for 10 years and we've been married for 8 now, etc etc) and having the exact same type of woodburner will be really neat. Seeing those ceramic plates again will be funny for a while because the basement used to be like walking down into hell; since we moved back in it's like a meat freezer. Hopefully it won't be long until it's too hot to live down there again LOL.

Dad has told me that some people think the old ones are inefficient, but after you get used to it and as long as I use good dry wood, it will work fine for me. I work in the coal business and have access to lots of easy to get hardwood. Cut all you want, we'll bulldoze some more!

My concern about the finish comes from redoing my shop woodburner (if you can call it that). I have the little Vozelgang contraption that they sell at Tractor Supply for around $150. Don't get me wrong, it heats my 8x30 shop great but has a 1-2 hour burn time and is hard to load up because it's so narrow. The stove needed refinished this fall to get ready for the winter so I painted it and the finish came out part flat, part shiny, and generally pretty ugly looking. It's since evened out for the most part but I want my Blaze King to look really good since it'll be in the family room. Probably nothing to worry about but I want to get it right on the first try.

The worst part of the whole deal is the dozen or so pickup truck loads of wood I brought home this year. Made up of mostly red oak with some white oak and cherry mixed in, the wood was ALL cut really short and split into small pieces to fit in the shop stove. Once we were done I declared that there was a 3 year supply of wood and felt pretty proud of all the hard work. I hardly have anything to burn in the new fireplace DOH

Craig

 

[craigs]

Well, after a little over 6 hours in the truck today we got it home. The seller told me he bought it at a sale hoping to use it in his basement but it was too large to fit IN FRONT of his fireplace so the pipe wouldn't make it into the opening. He had a smaller woodburner sitting on the floor in front of the fireplace with the pipe going up into the chimney. Strange setup but he was happy. Told me that he didn't know the history on this one so we loaded it up and took off. When we got home and checked it out, dad said it has no evidence of being abused or overheated. Heck, it only has one cracked firebrick and it's on the bottom. I think I did pretty good.

I got the basement cleaned up and organized so we could move out the gas fireplace that I hated and get this one in. The plans were to clean and paint it but it looked a lot better than the photos, so we'll wait till summer for blasting and paint. In the pic it looks wierd but that's just the cell phone camera distortion. Tomorrow I'll move the entertainment center farther away from it and dig out the largest logs I have in the woodpile. Monday I'll replace the rope on the door and the cracked brick, and then buy the pipe I need to connect it to the existing double walled 8" pipe that goes through the wall.

Soon we'll have REAL heat again!

Craig

 

[tickbitty]

Hey who stole your middle ceramic medallion? Hope it works great for you! Gotta say I have never seen the loose gravel hearth pad treatment before!

 

[Hiram Maxim]

Good story....hope to hear more!

 

[craigs]

I am now up and running. After picking up the stove and getting it in so fast, I just couldn't wait. Today after church I raced home and changed into work clothes. Picked up the flue pipe, elbow, self drilling screws, trim ring to cover the switch from single wall flue pipe to double wall chimney, long matches, magnetic thermometer, and one of those fake log things (we have always used small pieces of this as fire starter).

For now it's a smaller fire and I'm barely at 300 degrees on the pipe, but I just want to make sure all is well before letting her rip. Also need to cut up some of the wood at the jobsites that have been laying for over a year. These won't be so short and thin when cut like the wood for my little shop woodburner.

I'm able to really shut down the heat when I want with the thermostat, but it's extremely sensitive. Once the thermometer gets up over 350 I get scared and turn down the thermostat, but nothing seems to happen until I turn it all the way down to low. Then the thermometer really drops down fast, from like 375 to 300 within 30 seconds or so. So then I open up the thermostat just a little and the temp will stay at 300 (right at the beginning of "Burn Zone" on the thermometer). I really don't want to let the temp get very high because I'm using such small pieces of wood. I'm wondering if the super sensitivity of the thermostat is due to the small pieces or if it's just how this stove operates. Should I wait to load it up until I have larger logs, or do I have nothing to fear?

More pics soon.

Craig

 

[cmonSTART]

Great story! We just picked up the Blaze King line recently so I've been doing a lot of reading on them. Glad you are enjoying the stove!

 

[craigs]

Gotta say I have never seen the loose gravel hearth pad treatment before!

Forgot to mention - the hearth pad was built in 1974 with the house and we originally had one of those "retro" (wasn't back then haha) fireplaces that looks like an upside down Y. Some of the house still has funky '70s features like the white rocks around the stove. I still miss the red shag carpet!

Craig

 

[pen]

That might be the most unique hearth pad I have ever seen!

Welcome back to the habit. This is one situation where the support group is here for those participating in the behavior, not those that have quite! You'll soon see, it's just as addictive as any drug.

Good luck, be sure to inspect that older chimney for any potential problems, and get ready to keep things warm.

pen

 

[hoverp]

I had the same stove It was in my basement and I kept it for a long while till I upgraded to my New KE1107 Ultra....I would suggest one thing...replace th thermocoil spring in your damper with a new one from Blaze king......a stove that old might have been hot a few times in its life and the sensitivity sounds like a overreacting or plateauing thermocoil...

 

[craigs]

Thanks for the advice. I plan on ordering a thermostat and a spare tomorrow. Tonight I was able to keep it at 350 for a couple hours, but once the wood started to really cook near the end of the burn, it went up to 400 and was still climbing. I hadn't opened the door or touched it for quite a while. I am pretty sure with a properly working thermostat it shouldn't do that. I'm going to open it up now and see what the fire is doing so you guys can help me diagnose this in case it isn't the thermostat.... Ok there were 3 medium sized logs sitting sideways on top of coals a couple hours ago. Now, the one in the back is gone with only some red coals left, and the 2 in the front are basically fried. They are pretty much red coals in the shape of the 2 logs they used to be. This is probably the hottest part of the burn cycle for this load, but again I think the thermostat should shut off the air and keep it calmed down. I've turned it down twice in the last 10 minutes and it's staying at 400. Had I not been here to turn it down I don't know what the temp would be.

Otherwise, the thing sure is nice! It was in the teens all day today and the furnace only kicked on once when I had to leave for a while. I asked my wife to keep an eye on the temperature and call me if it went above 300. She called and said it was going down (that's when I had a smaller fire in it) and after I got home I heard the furnace kick on while I was waiting for the fire to build up again. Compare that to yesterday while we were traveling to pick this thing up; my wife said the furnace was on most of the day!

*edit - I just got off the phone with dad. After saying "are you calling me or the fire department?" he told me to "remain calm" and reminded me that I'm burning smaller logs than this stove should have and that not all of them have been seasoned the same. So I guess a new thermostat is a good idea, but I really need to get cutting some of the trees that have been down for over a year and set that red oak to dry till this fall. Until then I can play around and get used to the new stove, and once the wood is properly seasoned I'll be in business. I should be able to get a couple years worth of wood set aside this winter and spring which will mean subsequent years will only have better and better wood to burn.

Oh, and my wife just came downstairs. She looked at the stove, looked at me, said "whew", and with a wipe of her brow declared it was too hot to be downstairs. Perfect!

Craig

 

[Todd]

How high up are you placing your thermometer on your pipe? According to Condar my themometer is calibrated to 12" above the stove collar and the good burn zone is 250-500, so maybe you could let it burn a little hotter?

 

[craigs]

The directions said to place the thermometer no more than 6" from the top of the stove, so I have mine just above the joint from the stove outlet on the pipe. I'm sure many blaze king owners with this stove burn them hotter than what I'm doing now, but I want to keep it toned down until I do some things like replace the rope gasket on the door, install a new thermostat, and get some larger logs. Maybe I will get some feedback on normal temps. I will say that the basement gets pretty hot, like Africa hot, once the stove is 400 and above.

Craig

 

[craigs]

Been burning each night trying to get used to the stove. Last night I put my ear near the bottom of the door and, you guessed it, heard air moving. So today I ran into the fireplace shop as they were closing and picked up a new gasket and cement. Wow, what a difference! The stove didn't try to take off on me at all.

I have a thermostat on order and from what I've seen tonight, I need it. The stove just doesn't adjust itself like I think it should. I can set the thermostat and the stove will be at 350 for example, then add wood, allow it to get going, then close the doors. The stove will settle at a different temperature. I'm pretty sure it should go to 350 again, right? As a kid I remember walking into the basement, opening the door, and throwing 2-4 splits in. Let the door cracked for 10-20 seconds, close door, walk away. We had no thermometer and I don't ever remember changing the thermostat, ever. Maybe it varied 50-75 degrees and having a thermometer is just something additional to worry about now.

Craig

 

[pen]

Is this thermometer on the stove pipe or stove top?

350 is a lot too cool for a stove top temperature if you have an active fire going. I reload at just a little less than that! I'd say 650 is your "redline" so to speak. And aim for a cruise of 500-600 most times.

pen

 

[SolarAndWood]

Maybe it varied 50-75 degrees and having a thermometer is just something additional to worry about now.

The thermometer is nice to have in the later stages of the burn cycle as a reference point for when to open up the air for the burn down before the reload.

BTW, did your tstat act any differently after you fixed the gasket? I read that if the tstat is done it closes the air supply completely.

 

[craigs]

The thermometer is approx 5" above the flue pipe collar on the stove. The directions say to keep it pretty close to the stove. Between 350 and 400 feels comfortable for the stove - 450 and up feels HOT. Like Africa hot. But it probably is where the stove should be unfortunately.

The thermostat has not acted any different since the new gasket. I really think either the "flapper" is sticking slightly, or the thermostat is just plain old and worn out. I'm still dealing with wood that is pretty small and only seasoned one year, but I haven't seen the flapper move at all. With the cover removed, I should be able to watch the flapper move around while being controlled by the tstat right?

Craig

 

[SolarAndWood]

I should be able to watch the flapper move around while being controlled by the tstat right?

That is what I was curious about. My stove arrived on October 2nd and has had a fire in it ever since. It is pretty much a black box to me.

 

[tiber]

regarding refinishing the stove, two comments:
If you have a sand blaster it's the better way of doing it, but using wire brushes is how most of us who work on metal do things. Buy a rotory wire brush and go to town. It'll also do a better job at some of the weird angles than sand will with less fuss. Sand works for large areas.

Rattle can - You're doing it wrong if you're getting weird looking splotchy stuff on there. PROTIP - Hold the can about twice as far away as you think is prudent and "lob" the paint on there spraying above the work. If you're doing it right, you'll end up with lots of little dots of paint ("stippling") and these will fill in as you move the can around. You do NOT want to have a clearly defined "line" of paint after one pass. As with anything, the secret is in the technique.